Routine
by mari.92.11.3
Summary: She thought she hated routine, but she realizes how wrong she is.


"Did you think you'd escaped from routine 

"_Did you think you'd escaped from routine _

_By changing the script and the scene?_

 _Despite all you made of it,_

 _You're always afraid of the change."—Peter Gabriel, Down to Earth_

She was amazingly glad when she was married. She loved her family, beyond the boundaries of doubt and pain and mistrust—it happened, when your father could read your mind and more often than not you let him. But she was sick of the routine—and towards the end of her single life, they got more and more overbearing, more clingy, more… more _them. _Alice was a shopping machine, and although Nessie usually didn't mind this habit at all, her aunt took it to the extreme. Rosalie became almost as overprotective as her mother, and her father…

"You're going to miss me, love, you just don't know it yet."

"I'm starting to doubt that." She snapped. "Can't you just stop infiltrating my mind?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Can you stop commenting?"

"Definitely not."

"See? This is exactly why I can't wait to beat it." She picked at a string in her shirt moodily.

"Ah." He looked slightly hurt, and immediately she felt guilty. "I'll let you stew then." He said softly, leaving the living room, where she'd been sitting with a book.

She let them do whatever they wanted after that. She let Alice stuff her in a white dress, let Rosalie dress her hair and both her grandmothers exclaim over her beauty. She let Emmet punch Jacob and tell him not to hurt her, Jasper tell him he'd kill him if he did anything stupid, and her grandfathers look at her with pride and smile. She let her mother hug her goodbye, and her dad walk her down the isle…

Wait, she wasn't counting on that. Well, she was, but she wasn't counting on tearing up when they got to the end of the isle and hugging her father—a moment that had never been rehearsed—at the altar and having him smile and wipe her tears. She wasn't counting on kissing Jacob with a wet face and then breaking out into full-fledged crying right on his shoulder, right at the altar.

She didn't count on that being the best night of her life, on relishing the break in the routine as much as she did.

She wasn't worried at all, going to their honeymoon. They stayed in an island off the coast of Africa and went exploring, sometimes both as humans, occasionally as wolf and girl. She liked it both ways, in all honesty.

And when they came home, she didn't know there would be such drastic change. They went from happy newlyweds to bickering and getting used to each other's habits in a second—she didn't like that change at all. And when he had to travel, and they had an argument the night before, he took her onto his lap and said softly in her ear, "You're going to miss me, Ness, you just don't know it yet."

"I'm starting to doubt that." She snapped moodily, picking at a string on his shirt.

"Yeah, me too."

"What?"

"I'm starting to doubt you're going to miss me."

"Oh. Well, that's ok then. Just don't…"

He kissed her fiercely, and she responded just as quickly. Then she pulled away and buried her face in his shirt. "I _am_ going to miss you. Ad if you do _anything _stupid, I will shoot you, understand me?"

He chuckled. "Yes, dear."

"Don't call me that."

"Yes, dear."

She smacked him lightly in the face.

She cried a little when he left, and spent the week he was gone with her family. It wasn't much different than what she'd gotten used to with Jacob at all, now that she thought about it. They loved her; he loved her. They'd missed her, he'd written her about ten emails the first day he was gone, so she was pretty sure he'd missed her. She loved them back; she couldn't live without him.

She told this to her father one night—they always talked in the evenings; it was one of the many routines they'd developed over the years—and he hugged her and smiled. "So you do miss me then?"

She looked up at him with wide eyes. "Of course. Did you ever think otherwise?"

He laughed outright, but she heard a hint of relief in that. "Never, dear."

"Good."

Why had she never noticed how similar her new home was to her old one? The confidence her father radiated and the insecurities as well—they were all identical to husband's.

When Jacob came back, they spent a long night talking and laughing and listening to Beatles songs on full blast. Jacob couldn't stand them—but she liked them, so he put up with it. It was a night for their friendship. And then, in the morning, they were in love, and had returned to their old routine.

She was happy, though. She never wanted it to change.


End file.
